Long Division
by milgarion
Summary: There are lines that divide us all, morals, beliefs. Some are written, some drawn in the sand. Some carved into flesh. They all tell stories, they tell lies. They draw and they divide. John sees him. Truly sees him, for the first time. Sees them pale and and marked, forever sunk into his skin. (John finds out about Sherlock's scars.)
1. Chapter 1

The thing about John, is that despite all attempts and best efforts, and for someone who at first glance seems so normal and predictable, Sherlock has never quite managed to get a handle on what will come next.

So when he texts John to invite him to Christmas dinner, a ridiculous affair he's allowed himself to succumb to only because it works so well in the favour of his machinations, and receives a curt '_thanks, but no._' In return, he actually frowns.

_Mary is here. SH_

_Of course she is. JW_

He waits. Anticipating another message.

_I've been told a change of scenery can do wonders. SH_

Five minutes pass. Fingers drumming on the armchair as he listens to his parents talking in the living room.

_I know what you're doing. JW_

Of course he did.

_I appreciate it. I do. But it's not going to work. JW_

Sherlock purses his lips, brow drawn and is a moment away from replying when his phone chimes again.

_I'm leaving her. _

And just like that, the plan is off. Sherlock is once again thrown off by John's ability to be both unassuming and utterly chaotic at the same time, sitting in the near silence of the kitchen, ignoring his mother's entrance and mutterings about carrots and sprouts. He very nearly forgets to tell Wiggins not to spike everyone's tea.

John moves back in.

He has in fact been staying at the flat ever since the night he'd ended up back in the hospital, although Sherlock hadn't been entirely aware of that until he'd been released, coming home to find the jarringly familiar sights of John and domesticity wrapped around every surface as though he'd never left.

But it was one thing to have him as a guest, and another all together to stand in the doorway to the living room as he listened to the sounds of John unpacking his cases upstairs, the heavy slide of drawers opening and closing as clothes were firmly put in their place, the hangers jangling in the wardrobe as Sherlock realised that this was it. He was really staying.

He pushed away from the jamb, knuckles idly rubbing at the tight circle of scar tissue on his chest, as though it could be blamed for the odd twist of _feeling_ that clutched tightly at his breath.

When John came down an hour later, he found Sherlock firmly ensconced upon the sofa, eyes a little glazed as he wandered the corridors of his mind, and if he noticed the odd wariness and confusion that drew his face into tightened lines then he never made mention of it.

Mary died on a Thursday.

When John had text him to ask him to come to the hospital, he'd thought that it had finally all caught up with them. He'd imagined rooftop snipers or covert poisonings, a suitable end, or as suitable as it could get for a woman like Mary.

He was almost offended at the dullness of it. Tripped and fallen whilst crossing the street, and the driver had not had a chance to brake.

He hovered, uncertain, as they were taken to the morgue. Watching carefully as the sheet was drawn back so that John could nod stiffly in affirmation as he identified her, his gaze lingering not on the pale grey face, but on the swell of her stomach beneath the hospital sheet.

John asked for a minute. Voice quiet and pleading as though Sherlock wouldn't have given him anything, _everything_ in that moment to stop the trembling of his lips.

So he stood outside, face down and thumb pressed once again to his scar. Hoping that it was the reason it felt as though he couldn't breathe.

The first time John comes on a case with him he ends up in the Thames. . .


	2. Chapter 2

The first time John comes on a case with him he ends up in the Thames.

Sherlock, that is. Not John. John has always been reasonably sensible at playing near the sidelines.

It's freezing and miserable, sleet bracing down from the weighted snow heavy sky as Sherlock waves off the paramedic who tried to fuss over the grazes he received falling from the dock.

John just smiles and makes an excuse for him, reaching out to hike the bright orange blanket so that it almost covers his ears. Sherlock isn't sure if it's because he's shivering too much or because he can see Anderson out the corner of his eye trying to take pictures.

The flat is a welcome relief after the reluctant car ride home in the back of one of the panda's. The only thing that redeemed the experience is that Sherlock had left the back seat utterly soaked.

John coaxed the fire into life as he instructed Sherlock into the shower, stepping under the stream with a sigh that seemed to come from his very bones.

He returns to the living room with his dressing gown clutched in his hand, a concession to a ritual years old. He finds john waiting, curtains pulled shut and the firelight giving more warmth to the room than the flames themselves.

He sits on the arm of John's chair, the tea table pulled close with it's sterile offerings and complies unflinchingly when John motions 'Off', watching the grimace on Sherlock's face as he contorts his arms to pull off the soft cotton shirt.

He turns to throw it onto his own chair, followed by the silk slip and slide of his dressing gown, and when he turns back John's eyes are wide.

John's name slips from his lips, quiet and curious.

John's hand on his shoulder, startling in its warmth. He must have sat with his palms to the fire while he'd waited for Sherlock to finish.

He'd have spoken again, would have asked what was wrong, but he knew it the moment John draws his body forward, stepping closer into Sherlock's sphere as he twists him towards the light.

And with the faint indrawn breath, Sherlock freezes. Shoulder set beneath John's hand as he feels his face flush, turning away from those kind eyes as his skin crawls, feels the way John reads every line carved into his skin.

"Oh God." John's voice creeps into the silence of Baker Street, disbelief and agony written with denial.

He should stop him. Sherlock knows he should pull back, turn away, shrug him off, anything... anything to stop the overwhelming vulnerability that makes his heart stutter, his hand tremble where its pressed against his thigh. But he's never been very good at denying John Watson.

"Oh, Sherlock." Fingers drifting down over his skin, leaving ripples of sensation in their wake as John carefully, oh so carefully, traces the lines in his flesh, crossing and mapping from one to another.

Sherlock knew what he saw, could read the years spent away in the story marked out with pain and torture. Some silver and fading, others still dark and angry, those that still pulled as he moved, forcing him upright to escape the burning itch of undeleted memories. "What did they do to you..."

He couldn't really be asking. It was obvious. It was all so blindingly, horrifyingly obvious. And they both knew it.

He swallows hard and turns his face away as John pulls back, eyes now fixed on the mulish vacant expression Sherlock's set upon his face.

Together they stand in silence, the eerie calm only tempered by the crackling of the fire in its grate and the even, measured breaths that seem to make John's body sway.

"Sherlock..."

Silence broken with the edge of John's voice, rasping and strange.

"I'd rather not talk about it." Sherlock finds himself saying, though whether it was from the true desire to forget what had happened in those darkened rooms and underground cells, or from the far more frightening concept that he wouldn't be able to bear the look of horror and pity on John's face knowing it was he who'd put it there.

And John... his dear, sweet, wonderful John... says nothing. Instead curling his fingers beneath Sherlock's chin to lift his face, his other hand rising to brush away the curls from his forehead as he silently takes to work.

He'd always been gentle in that clinical way of his, but now Sherlock's chest aches in a wholly different way as he lets his eyes roam over the shadows and plains of John's face, taking in the tight line of his jaw, the odd glint in his eyes as he carefully cleans the cuts and grazes his latest adventure has earned him.

It takes Sherlock a while to place it, the change that made this so very different to the rituals of old. John was still gentle with him, so very gentle, but it was more than that. It was masked in the way John brushed the hair back from his face, the way his hand trembled minutely against Sherlock's cheek as he held him steady, eyes refusing to meet.

Even when he's finished, cuts stinging with antiseptic, John remains, staring at the raw abrasions that grazed his cheek, at the darkening bruises that tracked their way down his arm and ribs. Sherlock's body itches and heats under the gaze as John's eyes linger on the purpling bruise that smudges the line of his hip bone, darkened and disappearing beneath the waistband of his pyjamas.

Sherlock swallows. About to speak.

"I never said thank you." John whispers, eyes staying trained on the catalogue of bruises, though whether he was really looking at the damage done to him or not, Sherlock couldn't tell because John grimaced the moment he parted his lips. "When you came back." John elaborated. "I was...so... _angry_."

John presses his eyes shut, sucking one long painful breath into his lungs before releasing it, eyes open and suddenly on Sherlock's face with a look that leaves him feeling more naked than he already was. "I'm so sorry." He muttered.

Sherlock frowned. Stuttered. "Sorry?"

John's face falls a little at Sherlock's confusion.

"I'm sorry that I never asked." He says quietly. "That I never said thank you for what you did. I never thought that..." He stops, something caught and choking in his throat as Sherlock watches his eyes skip to his shoulder where he knows the tail end of one of his scars curls around towards his collarbone.

"It's alright." He murmurs, feeling the night spiralling away into something all together different.

"No, it's not."John whispers harshly, and Sherlock can't help the way he flinches, his hand tightening briefly in its hold as John sways closer, seemingly unaware. "It is not okay." He holds Sherlock's eyes. "What I said to you... what I did..." He swallows briefly, gaze flickering momentarily to Sherlock's mouth as though he can still see the split his fist had made.

Sherlock waits a full minute to see if John will continue. "We all make mistakes." He tries for levity, but fails.

John smiles. Something like a laugh escapes him, but if it is then it's a sound Sherlock never wants to hear again. "Mistakes." He echoes, something darkening in his eyes.

Sherlock gasps at the gentle press of John's fingers to his chest, light and hesitant over the fresh pink skin of the bullet wound. "If either of us has made a mistake Sherlock, It's me." He says quietly, following the minute path his fingertips take as they trace the edge of the scar. "Such ridiculous mistakes." He flattens his hand, palm pressing warm and solid against Sherlock's chest as though to hide from sight that which nearly took him from the world. "And you... you've been the one to pay for them." He shakes his head, angry and saddened with himself.

"She wasn't a mistake." Sherlock says quietly, sure that it is the right thing to say.

John really does laugh then, but it's bitter and mirthless, and it hurts... physically hurts to see John this way. "You loved her." Sherlock presses, trying to make John see how it had once been, to make him remember, to stop his hurt.

John sways minutely, hand shifting on Sherlock's chest and he has to bite the inside of his mouth to keep his breathing even.

"No." John's eyes so sharply focused on his hand covering the scar. "No I didn't."

He sounds numb and matter of fact and Sherlock fears for a moment that they are skirting the lip of something dark and terrible before John speaks again. "She was enough. That's what she was... enough."

Sherlock wants to ask what it is he means but the words dry up in his throat and the answer is heartbreakingly clear the moment John raises his gaze to meet Sherlock's and everything John has held back since his return is written right there in his eyes, the pain, the agony, the relief and regret and joy and grief and aching adoration.

"John..." The name barely leaves his lips, more a sibilant arrangement of air that chokes him and makes his heart leap in his chest as he watches the colour in John's eyes vanish around the black of his pupils as they blow wide.

He's utterly out of his depth and terrified, but he can't help the way his breath shakes as John carefully traces the graze that highlights his cheek, the doctor's touch barely there yet setting his skin aflame in the wake of its path and he has to fight the way his eyes want to close, wants to watch every moment of John moving closer, but he fails, holding his breath as that careful touch grows bolder as it cups his cheek and raises his face.

"Sherlock..." John's brow is pressed against his, his breath falling against his lips and Sherlock can't help the quiet sound that escapes him, his hand raising from where his fist was clenched against his own thigh to hover uselessly next to John's waist, unsure and hesitant even as John finally, _finally_, captures his lips, soft, chaste, and so utterly perfect that Sherlock's mind goes wonderfully, blissfully quiet.


End file.
